


Polaris

by Becassine



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Boys In Love, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Fix-It of Sorts, Light Angst, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:35:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27451339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Becassine/pseuds/Becassine
Summary: Sarah Rogers always said that they were written in the stars. Bucky thinks that perhaps she was right.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 29
Kudos: 86





	Polaris

**Author's Note:**

> So I hope this story works. I loved the idea of Bucky being a space nerd and going to the planetarium back in the 30s and decided to use the night sky as the connecting theme throughout this story. It’s canon-compliant(ish) up to Endgame because - and I cannot stress this enough - _fuck_ Endgame and that epilogue. I also really hate that Steve and Bucky had next to no screen-time in Infinity War so I fixed that too.
> 
> This is my first fic in about a decade so hopefully it makes sense! 
> 
> Thank you to oh-i-swear-writes for the beta read. Any mistakes are definitely still mine however. And as with all authors, feedback and kudos absolutely makes my day and encourages me to write more. I have a lot of unfinished WIPs on my google docs right now.

i.

Bucky’s always liked stars.

Dog-eared comics about science fiction and space tucked neatly into the crates he fashioned into a bookcase; borrowed library books with greasy-thin pages from use showing the placement of the stars within the sky which he’s long-committed to memory. He reads about the myths behind the constellations, tales about the Greek gods and works out how to tell their stories.

He is fourteen when he manages to wheedle Steve into travelling out of the city - and the smog - one night. Before then, he’s not been able to see much from their rooftop in Brooklyn, thick dirty clouds usually obscuring their brilliance. It’s early evening in fall, the nights coming in earlier when the two of them catch a train out to a podunk town in Jersey with the intention of catching the last one back.

Steve’s allergies are less in this weather, he’s only sneezing intermittently as they lie in the grass and look up at the night sky. Bucky is entranced, hands swooping from position to position as he explains what they all mean. Steve hides his smile as he does so, pretending like he hasn’t heard Bucky talk about the stars a million times before.

The two of them are settled on one of Sarah’s homemade quilts, Bucky’s voice quiet and steady. It’s not long before Steve’s head has lolled onto Bucky’s shoulder, Bucky’s arm wrapped around his shoulder to stop him from rolling off and startling himself.

“And that’s Polaris. Even in Brooklyn you can see that if it isn’t cloudy.”

“That’s our star, Bucky,” Steve’s voice is sleepy, so used is he to Bucky talking him to sleep when he’s sick. 

“Our star?”

Steve nods, pointy chin digging into Bucky’s shoulder. “Our star. We’re each other’s North Star. That’s what Polaris is, right?”

Bucky smiles. “Yeah, pal. That’s Polaris. You really think that?”

“Of course I do. Ma told me a long time ago that we’ll always be in each other’s lives; it’s written in the stars.” Sarah’s always had a sixth sense about her, a way of predicting and knowing things and Bucky feels a bit of a flutter in his heart at the admission. “So that’s our star.”

Bucky’s taken aback at the simplicity of it but nods. “Sure, Stevie. That’s our star.”

ii.

The night before Bucky ships out, Steve is upset. He knows Steve didn’t want to go to the Stark Expo but after finding Steve arguing in another damn alleyway, spitting like an undersized tom cat, it feels like the right thing to get out for the evening. The idea of them both being in their small apartment, Steve’s sullen and brooding silence stinking up the space, was only going to lead to an argument. Bucky doesn’t want to leave on an argument, Steve’s words ringing in his ears. As much as they’re the best of friends, they both hit below the belt when they’re upset. 

It’s late when Bucky gets home, Connie’s perfume a lingering whisper on his collar. He’s not one for dame’s perfumes - the girls he dates don’t have any money to spend on the expensive stuff and it tends to reek strongly of flowers and alcohol - but he thinks it’ll be comforting to smell on his jacket on the journey over to Europe.

As his eyes adjust to the darkness of the apartment, he notices that the window is wedged ajar with a piece of wood and sighs. Steve’s on the fire escape and Bucky’s plan to fall asleep without an argument seems nigh on impossible. He shrugs out of his uniform jacket and tie, hanging them both on the back of a dining chair.

“Is it not past your bedtime yet, punk?” he asks as he pushes the window up further and shimmies out. Steve is limned in moonlight, his sharp angles only making him look more ethereal. It feels like he’s the most beautiful thing Bucky has ever seen, even with an ugly scowl on his face, and his cool fails him for a moment.

“Not yet,” Steve grunts, tossing his sketchbook aside. He’s been drawing constellations again, fleshing them out into mythical Gods and creatures. “How was Connie?”

Bucky shrugs, seating himself next to Steve so they’re touching shoulder to hip to thigh. “She’s a good dancer. Doubt I’ll see her again, things being what they are-”

“I’m going to miss you,” Steve interrupts, looking intently at his knees which are drawn up against his chest.

Bucky’s taken aback at the admission and he stills for a moment, wondering if he hallucinated it. Bucky knows Steve loves him, Bucky knows that Steve knows he loves Steve. Whilst they’ve fooled around for years on the sly, both of them pretending that it’s not what it is, they’ve never voiced the big things and he thinks that it’s because both of them have always been too worried that things would change for good. Trust Steve to do it now when things _are_ changing, when the entire country has started down a journey to war, blood and destruction. He’s such a little shit and Bucky doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry that he’s so contrary.

“I’m going to miss you too, pal. But I’ll be back before you know it, once we’ve knocked out Hitler,” he says, lacing his words with a confidence he doesn’t feel.

Steve sighs and leans his head on Bucky’s shoulder. “Don’t, Buck.”

“Don’t what?”

“It’s war. I know I’ve always wanted to fight like my pa but you… You’ve never wanted that.” Bucky makes a noise of protest and Steve shakes his head minutely. “You’re not a fighter but you’re gonna be one for me, alright? I need you to stay safe.”

Bucky frowns. “Steve-”

He’s cut off by lips against his, Steve’s hand gripping his bicep hard. Bucky jerks his head back by default against the window frame to find Steve looking- No, _glaring_ at him. “What was that for?”

“What was that for, he says,” Steve’s gaze softens slightly but not by much. Bucky idly wonders if it should be such a turn-on. “I’m going to miss you. I know we’ve… I know there’s things we haven’t said to each other and there isn’t enough time now but you have to stay safe.” 

Bucky’s skin feels too tight and he wants to cry. He loves Steve, he’s always loved Steve and he doesn’t remember what it was to _not_ love the man in front of him. He wants to spend the evening whispering love onto his skin, kissing it with biting kisses so that Steve knows how much he loves him for a week at least. He wants everything he can have. 

He wants to do all of these things _right_ now and so he reaches out and covers Steve’s hand with his own, leaning in to kiss Steve sweet and slow. “Oh Stevie, sweetheart, we’ve got time. I’ll sleep on the damn boat.”

iii.

In Europe, when sleeping outside under the stars, Bucky tells stories about the different constellations. Some of them are real, some of them he’s not sure about and some of them venture into make-believe. It doesn’t really matter; it’s the telling of the stories that help settle nerves, allow the other men to focus on something that wasn’t the fact that they have another man’s blood under their fingernails.

He thinks of Steve as he tells them, imagining him hunched under the covers with his hair stuck flat against the pillow. It’s cold in Europe, the type of cold that seeps into your bones and he knows it will be cold in Brooklyn too, sinking into Steve’s bones cruelly. He knows his ma will check in on Steve as much as he’ll let her, that she’ll make sure that he isn’t knocked flat with pneumonia but he feels a twinge of worry at the thought. 

Bucky is a pragmatist at heart and he can see which way the war was going. It still hurts his heart to think that he might not see Steve again, especially with what they whispered to each other that last night. Some days it’s the only thing that kept him going, imagining Steve having to go through life alone with very little kindness: shoulders stiff, chin tilted up and eyes blazing blue fire.

“What’s that one, Barnes?” 

Bucky tries to shake off his maudlin and follows the outstretched arm, smile broadening into something joyous as he sees the sinuous curve of Draco.

“That’s Draco, Dum Dum. Did I ever tell you fellas about that one?”

A clamour of ‘tell it again, Barnes’ reaches his ears and he shifts, getting more comfortable on the hard ground below him. “So you all know about Hercules…”

iv.

Strapped to a table, unable to move. People around him watching his every move. Bucky was shaking, no, convulsing, as he felt fire licking through him. It hurt, it hurt like a bullet to his shoulder hadn’t, how knives hadn’t. Just when it felt like it was too much, like it might consume him, it subsides and he groans loudly.

“Three, two, five, five, seven, zero, three, eight,” he mutters under his breath, gritting his teeth as the pain swept through him again. Bucky hasn’t understood much of the german going on around him but he can tell they’re excited. “Three, two, five five, seven-”

The clouds part and moonlight hits his face, streaming down from the skylight. A glint catches his eye and Bucky tries to focus on it, wanting to sob when he realises what he’s looking at. He knew that star, no, _knows_ that star and would know it in any night sky. It’s Polaris. 

Steve is his North Star. He has to get back for Steve.

“Erneut.”

Bucky grits his teeth as he feels the sharp stinging press of a needle against his inner arm, knows what that word means. 

_Again._

“Three, two, five, five, seven-” He cuts himself off as he screams, mind going blissfully blank as his body decides it has had enough.

v.

Bucky doesn’t know what to make of Steve’s new body. He expects to look down and see Steve looking up at him, he expects the rattle and whine of Steve’s damaged lungs. He expects a lot of things and yet what he has is this… God of a man. Bucky’s been telling stories about Hercules for years and it seems as if he’s summoned him.

Steve’s looking at him knowingly and Bucky doesn’t know what to say.

“Are you okay?”

Bucky comes back to himself enough to nod, doesn’t mention that he still feels out of sorts because he’s never complained to Steve about his health, not when he was always the healthiest of the two of them. He can hear things he couldn’t hear before and see in this inky darkness more than he ever could before but he puts it down to being experimented on like some sort of Hydra science project. Nothing that a few nights sleep and a warm dinner in his belly won’t sort.

“Yeah. Steve… You’re here.” He pauses to check that nobody's listening in on them but they’ve been given the gift of privacy by a few of the men in Bucky’s unit. Steve’s sudden arrival at Kreischberg with no back-up and dogged insistence on going after Bucky has made it pretty clear that the two of them are close. “I… I know we have some things to discuss but Jesus…” Bucky rubs the back of his knuckle across his eye, hearing Becca’s laugh in his head as he struggles not to cry. “I missed you, pal.”

“I missed you too.” A hand in his, a bigger hand in his and Bucky feels that odd sense that things aren’t quite right again. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you about this. I wasn’t sure I was going to even get through bootcamp-”

“Bootcamp? Shit, Stevie. _You_ did bootcamp like this or like… Before?” Bucky asks, squeezing the other man’s hand hard. “How did you get to looking like this?”

Steve’s silent for a moment and Bucky knows. Knows that whatever Steve’s about to say, he isn’t going to like. Knows that he’s going to want to tell him off for being a stupid, impulsive ass. “Can we talk about that in the morning?”

And it’s testament to how tired he is that Bucky only considers demanding the talk that needs to happen for about a second before he nods and flops back on the ground. Steve follows a second later, hesitating for a moment before curling into Bucky as he’d usually do. It doesn’t quite work, his height and muscles making their usual sleeping arrangements impossible and Bucky more feels than hears Steve’s upset sigh when he can’t get comfortable.

“C’mere, we can switch,” Bucky pushes a hand on Steve’s chest to heft him off, rolling with him and resting his head on Steve’s chest. It’s something they never did often, Bucky too worried about accidentally bruising Steve. He can’t hear any crackling below his ears, just the smooth even breathing that’s so unfamiliar. “So this is what working lungs sound like, huh?”

Steve huffs a laugh, arm hesitating before coming to wrap around Bucky. “Serum fixed it all, Buck. It’s… I can’t believe it. I always thought I’d be dead before now and everyone just expects me to be accepting of the fact that I’m not going to die-”

“None of that,” Bucky cuts in, tilting his head to look across at him. “I thought of you, you know? I kept telling myself that I needed to get back to you but… I couldn’t work out how. And then these Nazis had guns that could just vanish people and we were at Azzano and I couldn’t-”

“Now who needs to shut up?” Steve asks, cupping Bucky’s cheek and pressing a dry kiss to his lips. It’s not the kiss either of them want, crave, but both of them need to sleep and Bucky knows he’s too tired to start anything now. “I’m here. We’re both here. We can deal with the rest in the morning, Buck.”

Bucky’s silent, staring for a moment until he realises he’s staring. “Do you remember those stories I used to tell at night?”

“About the stars? Yeah, I remember well enough. Why?”

Bucky hesitates before settling down where he was, palm flat over Steve’s steadily beating heart. “Tell me some of them?” he asks as he looks up at the star through the canopy of the trees. That night he slowly drops off into some sort of rest as Steve’s voice - not changed - starts to murmur about Orion being a jerk.

vi.

One night, they slip out of London to stay at a farmhouse in Kent that some relative of Peggy owns. They’re all tired of the noise, the bustle of a city at war, of the air raid sirens, and so when she suggests it, Bucky, Steve and the Howlies jump at the chance to stay somewhere that isn’t improvised barracks. Bucky thinks that Peggy knows more than he’s comfortable with her knowing, those glances of hers are sharp and bright and Bucky feels like he has knives in his stomach whenever he looks at her. He doesn’t think Steve’s told her about them but Steve… He’s not the most subtle. If the Commandos have guessed - which they have in their own way - then it’s not beyond the realms of possibility for Peggy Carter to know.

He’s not sure how he feels about it. Steve’s never had female attention in the same way that Bucky has and whilst Bucky isn’t egotistical enough to think that they ended up with each other because Steve had few choices when it came to romance - there’s plenty of people in Vinegar Hill that thought Steve was exactly what they wanted - he feels oddly in the shade. It’s a new feeling and he can’t say it’s one he much likes.

He’s tried to step back a little, tried to go out with Dum Dum and Falsworth a little more to the pub to give Steve the space to ask Peggy out. He doesn’t, of course, sticks to Bucky and the others like glue and Bucky isn’t sure what to make of it. Peggy _likes_ Steve, Peggy is one of the most beautiful women Bucky’s ever seen and sharp as a tack to boot. Steve is Captain America now: all-American hero, a decorated officer, a vital piece of America’s war machine and he deserves the lifestyle that goes with that. Bucky knows that he started out as a propaganda stage show with the USO - and has given him plenty of shit about it - but he’s so much more than that now. Steve’s already analytical mind has sped up, the serum only enhancing the intelligence he had and making him into a tactical mastermind. Bucky jokes that it’s because Steve’s been licked in so many fights over the years that he can’t help but know all the ways to lose one.

“Dollar for your thoughts?” Bucky looks up from his position, half-sat against a beech tree. It’s late and he came outside to smoke, not wanting to stink up the house with his cigarettes. Steve might not be asthmatic any more but old habits die hard. 

“Not sure they’re worth that much, Steve,” he replies, stubbing out his cigarette on the ground next to him. “The others gone to bed yet?”

Steve shakes his head, sits down and automatically curls towards Bucky. “Gabe’s arguing with Morita over which of them got us lost in France. I left them to work out that it was actually Monty.”

“If it hadn’t been cloudy that night-”

“I know, Ptolemy,” Steve says with a grin. “But it’s why we got those compasses replaced once we got back. I didn’t realise they’d gotten too close to Howard’s magnets. Everyone seems to forget that only half of his inventions ever seem to work.”

Bucky snorts, leans over to kiss Steve on the temple and slides his fingers through that cornsilk hair. Showers. He really loves being somewhere where there’s showers and soap and you’ve not got to worry about a Nazi bullet in your ass while your clothes dry. 

“You didn’t want to stay in London?” he asks and the unspoken ‘with Peggy’ between the two of them is clear.

“Nope,” Steve says, popping the ‘p’. “I wish you’d stop… Why do you keep pushing this? Peg? If I wanted to, Buck, then I’d have been honest enough to tell you.”

Bucky sighs, presses a kiss again and doesn’t pull back. “You wouldn’t have to hide with her.”

“I don’t have to hide with you. Not really,” Steve says, his hand curving around Bucky’s knee possessively. “The guys know enough and nobody else really cares. All I wanna do is root out Hydra and go home to Brooklyn. I’d be able to hold down an actual job now, huh?”

“Mr. Greenberg would have you doing all the shelf stocking,” Bucky replies with a slight jab of his elbow into Steve’s side, starting a tussle that ends up minutes later with the two of them lying down, Steve half on top of Bucky and pinning him easily with one hand. “Say uncle, Buck.”

“Jeez, Rogers- Uncle!” he exclaims, his laugh sounding sharp and shocked as Steve tickles his side and makes him squirm.

“You’re so beautiful, Buck,” Steve’s voice is low but it’s not for fear of being overheard. It’s intimate and close and Bucky feels himself blushing something fierce and is glad for the opportunity to look away, eyes catching on Pegasus as Steve kisses down his neck, hand undoing the belt. He closes them as Steve’s hand closes over his dick, feeling light-headed with how quickly he gets hard.

When a week later Bucky sees Peggy’s picture in Steve’s compass as the small crew from the War Department Bureau of Public Relations films them, he _burns_ with jealousy. And anger, if he’s honest with himself. It comes to him again that he feels things more strongly since Kreischberg, like his body ain’t big enough to contain all of his emotions anymore. It’s not until he looks across and sees Peggy watching him, those red lips curved into an enigmatic smile that he realises what’s happening. At her wink, he feels the anger pop sudden and unexpected like a champagne cork, a dizzy bubbling feeling of relief and fear sweeping through him simultaneously. She knows and she likes Steve enough to know that it’s dangerous for the two of them. She’s helping to keep them safe.

vii.

The Northern Lights are dancing in front of his eyes, giant swathes of greens flickering and moving as if the sky is alight with luminous fire. The soldier watches them with interest in his grey-blue eyes but never moves from his post, remaining as still as he knows he must do.

He has a mission to complete.

The soldier is not allowed to fail the mission.

He is not sure why but he feels a prickle of fear at the thought of failing it. Pain, he remembers, a flicker of a memory coming back to him. Pain happens if he fails the mission. The soldier remembers that he does not like pain.

The target is not due for another thirty minutes but the soldier arrived early to double-check the reconnaissance and to decide on his position. It is not where the intel told him to make it because that is not the best place to be. It’s cold in Iceland and the snow drifts have been building for days now, making travel unpredictable and so the soldier’s wait could be a long one. He finds that he does not mind, not when he can look at the glorious spectacle in front of him.

 _Auroras are the result of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by solar wind_ the soldier thinks before he flinches.

How does he know that?

Why does he know that?

Is it important to the mission? 

He does not think so. The soldier knows that he does not always remember everything. He remembers his weapons. He remembers the missions he is currently on. He remembers the chamber. He remembers the _chair_.

The soldier does not like pain and he does not like the chair. He does not like the chamber and how cold it is, the way he feels the cold lance through his body and build, leaving him scrabbling on the glass to try and get out. He does not remember what happens next, only that he wakes up in cold water, shivering and wet.

He hears a car in the distance and refocuses, servos on his arm whining quietly as he looks down the scope. It is the matter of minutes for the car to get close enough, a clean shot through the window and through the driver’s head. The car swerves off the road and into a snowbank. There is no movement. Antonin Turgenev is no longer. He will not deliver secrets that could compromise the greater good and so the soldier is pleased.

The soldier looks at the Northern Lights for a few more minutes before heading to the drop point, his eyes drawn again and again to that single star. The North Star. He knows it. What he doesn’t know is why it conjures up the image of ocean blue eyes.

viii.

Steve lies on the rooftop of his apartment building in DC, cigarette held loosely in his fingers. He doesn’t smoke, definitely didn’t before the serum, but the smell of cigarette smoke always reminded him of Bucky and it keeps his fingers busy when he doesn’t feel like drawing. Bucky thought that Steve never noticed he smoked to kill the hunger pangs, always trying to make sure that Steve got enough food. He wonders how much they knew about each other, how much they did and didn’t say to make life easier for the other.

He wishes he could tell Bucky everything now. 

He’s mostly healed from his injuries, his ribs still twinging enough for him to not be running yet. The doctors have told him to take it steady, Nat and Sam are trailing him like a shadow every time he leaves the apartment. Even Tony’s swung by for a visit with Pepper, visibly straining with the effort to not ask about Steve’s childhood friend turned Hydra assassin under Pepper’s quelling gaze. 

Steve’s eyes snag on the Sirius constellation and then up to a single, bright star. Brighter than every other star.

He knows that Bucky knew him. Knows that Bucky dove off the helicarrier and pulled him out of the Potomac, made sure he was breathing before he left. Bucky broke some sort of conditioning and Steve knows that no matter what, no matter how small a piece, there is _something_ of Bucky inside the Winter Soldier.

After reading the file, it’s only made him more certain. The file made him throw up twice but he ploughed through it, absorbing in detail all the heinous, illegal, torturous things they did to the man he loves. If Steve was determined after Bucky’s fall to make Hydra pay, it’s nothing to how he feels now. The part that stabbed sharp and deep like a glass splinter was the almost innocuous statement about positive reinforcement, about how the Winter Soldier was to be told that his activities were for the greater good and to generate peace. An Asset wouldn’t care about that but _Bucky_ would.

So Steve’s not surprised that Bucky’s run. Bucky was never one to act much on his feelings without being sure of himself. He was a confident, cocksure boy about Brooklyn but he’d had his entire life living there to feel at ease. Bucky was different in the war: less confident, sharper in the way that he noticed things. Bucky now must feel like a shattered vase, not sure where the pieces are let alone how they fit together.

The only question Steve has as he looks up at the night sky is simple: when is Bucky coming back?

ix.

Bucky drops down behind the stone wall as soon as he’s scrambled over it, tries to force his breathing to something steadier than the ragged pants coming out of his mouth. He’s half-sobbing from frustration at his fight or flight instincts whenever he’s uncomfortable, something he’s been trying to curb for well over a year by this point. He tries to keep it to flight where he can, born from his desire - his fervent desire - not to hurt anybody who hasn’t tried to hurt him, coupled with his need to stay off-radar. Today it had been a Romanian lady at the market, her sharp words and dark hair reminding him of an old handler.

He’d gone to the market late, hoping to pick up fruit cheaper than it would be at lunchtime. Bucky doesn’t know how he speaks Romanian but he does and he gets by on manual labour, helping out in warehouses. It’s cold enough in those buildings that he can keep his coat and gloves on, nobody batting an eyelid at his presence so long as he can shift boxes. Still, it doesn’t pay well and whilst he’s living in a leaky abandoned apartment which saves on rent, he’s still got to eat and cheaper fruit is a boon. 

Twenty first century food has been a revelation. He doesn’t remember being fed by Hydra although they must have given him a cocktail of nutrients to keep him alive because whatever brand of serum he’s got makes him hungrier than a horse. He thinks he remembers tubes and packets of grey-coloured sludge but that memory makes his mouth fill with saliva, suddenly nauseous. 

He reaches around to pull his grey backpack off, rifling through it and pulling out a plum. He knows he should get home first and wash it but he’s hungry and shaken enough to bite into it now, shoulders visibly relaxing as the taste of it fills his mouth. It’s sweet, decadent-tasting even and it reminds him of the first one he ever had, filched from Mr. Rosenthal’s Grocers by Steve the week after Bucky got fired for skipping one too many shifts. It had been a bad year for Steve and with Sarah Rogers working at the hospital to pay for the medication he needed, Bucky had needed to spend more time at the apartment helping him through another bout of pneumonia. 

Steve is a complicated subject to think about. Bucky started writing down what he remembered back in Baltimore, having decided that the easiest way to leave was via a boat. It wasn’t as if he could catch a flight with his arm being what it was and he so he worked his way across to Genoa. But one notebook had become three notebooks, was now six of them and at least four of them are full of his memories of Steve.

Sometimes he writes questions down although he’s not sure why. It’s not like he’s going to see Steve anytime soon to pose them, not when he ran away from him to keep him safe. Hydra was always going to come looking for him and Bucky had realised with a mounting horror as memory after memory flooded his brain that he needed to stay away from Steve. He’s trouble for Steve and Steve is to be protected from himself as much as anything else. 

He knows Steve but he’s afraid to pry too much, to dig deeper on the memories he has. He suffers hard for each of those memories when they come back, ending up retching miserably on the floor as he remembers the bright laughter of the young and carefree, alleyway fights, the feel of a bony body curled around his own.

He shivers, suddenly cold, and comes back to himself to see that it’s dark. Bucky gets to his feet, stomps from one foot to another to kickstart the circulation back in his feet and tries to get a grip on his location. It’s instinct to look up at the sky to work out where he is rather than use one of the navigation apps on his current burner phone, finding himself transfixed at the sight. It had taken a while for his love of the sky, space and science fiction to come back but Bucky now reads voraciously in the evenings, his library card with false credentials being one of his hardest-won luxuries.

A news alert goes off on his phone, diverting his attention.

[CNN: UN calls meeting in Vienna - Avengers expected to attend]

x.

“Are you okay?”

The question is innocent and yet he doesn’t know how to answer. Physically, he’s as fine as he’s going to be. Shuri dealt with the remnants of his arm, anaesthetised him with something that actually worked for more than five minutes so he didn’t feel anything more than discomfort as they worked on the neural interfaces and stopped the shrieking pain racing through his body. Physically he’ll recover from the fight, another couple of scars, some bruising that’s already fading. He’s lopsided from losing the arm but he’ll adjust, adapt. Bucky’s learned that he can adapt to just about anything over the past century.

“I guess,” he replies, looking over his shoulder at Steve. Bucky’s sitting by the window of their suite in Wakanda, the view vast and spectacular although not this late in the evening. There’s an inky blackness, tiny lights dotted around the palace compound. “I’m sorry about what happened. With Stark’s kid-“

“Dont,” Steve turns to look at him and Bucky foolishly feels his breath catch. It might have been decades since he was last alone with Steve and he has holes in his memory like swiss cheese but Bucky knows enough of his mind to know that he still feels a certain way about Steve, that the sudden warmth flooding through him isn’t new and this fills him with a nervous exhilaration. Anticipation. It should be terrifying and yet Bucky’s only ever been afraid for Steve, never of him. “Buck, it wasn’t your fault. You can argue it every which way you want and I’ll listen but it’s not going to change my mind.” 

Bucky grunts a noise that isn’t an agreement and isn’t a disagreement and knows Steve will move towards him before the other man even takes a step in his direction, pulling his knees up so that Steve can fit on the window seat with him. Bucky still isn’t exactly keen on any kind of physical touch, flinching whenever somebody goes to touch him, but Steve is different somehow. He doesn’t calm Bucky’s mind, his very being incites a veritable maelstrom of memories, but there’s a crucial difference to the ones from _after_. All of these memories are good. _Steve_ is good.

“So how are you really feeling?” Steve asks again, never one to let something alone.

“My head’s messed up,” he admits, looking out of the window to avoid looking at him. “I… I evaded them for years, thought I’d managed to get them out of my head as easily as I got the trackers out of my arm and I destroyed the chairs I could remember but it was all for nothing, wasn’t it? I nearly killed people in Berlin, I nearly killed your friend-”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Buck. Tony wasn’t fighting to kill,” Steve says with a snort. “Those repulsors of his could flatten a supersoldier. He was mad at you, don’t get me wrong, but he was mad at me more than you. I knew about Howard and didn’t tell him about it.”

“How?” Bucky asks, stomach churning uneasily. 

“Zola. When we found out that Hydra was inside SHIELD, he alluded to some things and it wasn’t hard to put two and two together once I realised you were the Winter Soldier,” Steve replies, tone dispassionate. “I should have told him, I should… But then I saw the files Natasha pulled and you didn’t want to be found. The last thing I thought you wanted was Tony using his extensive resources to track you down and hand you over to the authorities.”

Bucky nods. “You’re not wrong there, pal. But I wasn’t running from you-”

“Bullshit-”

“-For the reasons you might think-”

“You ran because you didn’t know yourself and you were worried I’d get involved.”

Bucky’s jaw clicks shut and he throws Steve a slightly surprised look. He’s not surprised that Steve knows but he is surprised that Steve’s voiced it so calmly. “Grown a brain cell or two in seventy years, Stevie?”

Steve smiles then, sudden and bright and it hurts Bucky to see such unabashed affection. “Think I’ve lost a few without you around, Buck.”

He snorts, easy and soft and turns back to looking outside. It’s different here, the stars in a different position to where they are in America, Siberia or Romania and Bucky’s suddenly hit with a hunger to want to see how they look. He’s about to say something when Steve nudges his shoulder against Bucky’s good one.

“Wanna go outside and see how many of those stars you remember?”

Bucky swallows thickly, not sure whether he’s being obvious or whether Steve just knows him that well. He’s not the Bucky Steve knew, he’s not sure he’ll ever be that person with the mountains of baggage he has to make peace with somehow but moments like this catch him off-guard with how easy they are. He nods but before Steve can get up, he places his hand on his forearm. “Steve, I need to talk to you-”

“I know-”

He frowns. “You know what?”

“You want to go back under cryo. I didn’t mean to overhear-”

“Fucking super ears,” Bucky mutters as he gets to his feet, feeling a swell of anger. It’s not _at_ Steve exactly, it’s more at the situation because if Steve knows and isn’t saying something then Bucky knows that he’s got opinions about it but is hiding them to placate him. Okay, so maybe it’s a bit at Steve. “I can’t stay like this, not whilst there’s words out there that can turn me into a mindless killer, Steve. It takes away my autonomy and I can’t… I’ve worked too hard on being a person again.”

Steve smiles again but this time it’s tighter, smaller, and it makes Bucky’s heart hurt a little. He’s not conceited enough to think that Steve feels the way he once did about him, not battered and bruised and more than a little broken, but it doesn’t change how he feels about that tough little punk from Brooklyn who he’s loved since before he knew what love was. “You’ve always been a person but I… I get it. I didn’t want you to, I had a speech ready about why you shouldn’t but I spoke to Nat and she made me see a few things.”

“I know her, don’t I? That memory hasn’t shaken loose yet but I know it’s there somewhere,” Bucky says, feeling that prickling of discomfort that often comes when he thinks about the small redhead with the piercing green eyes.

Steve hesitates but nods. “You do but that’s her story to tell,” he replies, looking down for a moment before those blue eyes bore into Bucky’s once again. “She pointed out to me that without you being free of these trigger words, you’re always going to be fought over and that if we’re going to clear your name, we need to show that you can’t be used that way again.”

“Clear my name?” Bucky frowns. “Steve, you can’t be serious, there’s no way that’s going to happen.”

Steve shrugs, looking infuriatingly calm about it. “Never say never, Buck. Tony’ll come around and the others already have after hearing about what happened to you. Accords or not, Ross will want the Avengers back. He can’t defend our being out of America’s control.”

Bucky frowns and shakes his head. “No.”

“What?”

“No. If you want to do this - and I think you’re stupid because it won’t work - then you don’t use yourself as a goddamn bargaining chip,” Bucky says, getting to his feet and feeling himself over-compensate for the lack of his arm, Steve is at his side steadying him and he shrugs him off. “I mean it, Steve.”

“But Bucky-”

“No.”

“You’re being unreasonable-”

“ _No_ ,” Bucky repeats, stare turning into a more ominous glare.

“Fine…. Fine.” It doesn’t sound fine but Steve’s tone is careful. Studied. His ‘I’m not going to argue with you’ tone. “Let’s go stargaze, huh?” Bucky looks at him, a flat refusal on his lips. He wants to argue, he wants to tell Steve to stop being so fucking noble, he wants to kiss him senseless. Bucky wants to do a lot of things but knows he can’t do any of them.

“Sure, Steve,” he mutters with a scowl, grabbing a blanket off the end of the bed to wrap around himself. “Let’s go stargaze.”

xi.

Bucky loves Wakanda. He’s calmer here, happier. There’s nothing that really impinges on this small world he’s created for himself and other than minding the goats and acting as the occasional human climbing frame for the village kids, nothing is expected of him. The weather is almost always perfect, the scenery is like nothing he’s ever seen in his _life_ and it doesn’t hurt that the skies are like a huge painting, stars scattered across the vast skies almost carelessly. Nighttime swims at the lake are one of Bucky’s favourite things about Wakanda.

He’s here tonight, Steve lying on the shore next to him. Steve hasn’t gone back to the Avengers, acting under the - in Bucky’s opinion, overly dramatic - codename of ‘Nomad’. Natasha and Sam are with him and although they’ve come by a few times, the three of them have their own families and friends to catch up with. Bucky supposes that there has to be some Barnes knocking around Brooklyn but it’s not something he’s really thought about in detail. He’s not about to start bringing that trouble down on a family he doesn’t know.

“What are you thinking about?” Steve asks and Buck hums, turns his head towards him. 

“Friends, family. How Becca probably had a family,” he says drowsily.

There’s silence and then a “She did. Twins… James and Bernadette. I wanted to go visit them when I was out of the ice but I wasn’t sure if they’d want to see me.”

“Pal, there isn’t a Barnes in this world that wouldn’t want to,” Bucky says, nudging Steve’s ribs. He points towards Gemini, traces the points with his index finger in the same way he used to as a kid. “So twins, huh?”

Steve nods. “Born in 1955,” he says. “What made you think about them?”

“I was thinking of how you and your friends split up between missions, how they go to their families and friends and you come… Here,” He ducks his head a little, glad that the darkness swallows the movement some. “You know, if there’s other places you want to be… I mean, I saw you kiss that lady. Sharon Carter, wasn’t it?”

“Oh god, don’t,” Steve says with a choked off laugh, turning on his side. “I… We’d been on a couple of dates after the whole Project Insight thing. That was before I knew she was Peggy’s great-niece and… Well, I’ve never been good at letting a woman down.”

“Bullshit, Rogers,” Bucky’s laughing too, knocking his knuckles against Steve’s chest playfully. “You _can_ do it, you just don’t like being the bad guy much. Goes against those sensibilities of yours. Even with Peggy, you pussyfooted around.”

“That was your fault,” Steve said flatly and Bucky narrows his eyes.

“How was it my fault? You were making eyes at her before you even arrived in Europe, buddy,” he replies, trying not to think about those times. Those memories are bittersweet now Bucky looks back, remembering the terror he’d felt at feeling so _off_ intermingled with hidden kisses and shared rooms during the war. Desperate to show each other how they felt and unable to do a damn thing about it in public.

Steve ducks his head. “I wasn’t sure that you’d still like me.”

“I might be missing memories here or there but I don’t think… Did I?” he asks, frowning.

“No, no, I just- It looked so different and _I_ didn’t even know how I felt about it,” Steve says softly. “I knew you liked me before and it’s not like I ever saw you going around with other guys.” 

“That’s because I didn’t,” Bucky pauses, feels his cheeks getting hot as he blushes. “You were the only- Are the only fella I’ve been with.”

Steve makes a soft sound. “You too. Ever think about it?”

“Think about how it was?” Bucky asks, aware that they’re on dangerous territory. His body feels suddenly electrified, like in the moments before one of the sudden summer storms that sometimes descend on Wakanda with no warning. “Yeah, I do. It’s… They’re good memories and I don’t have too many of-”

There’s suddenly lips on his, not nervous but questioning all the same and it takes Bucky a split second to give his answer by relaxing and tilting his head, fitting his lips against Steve’s with an age old familiarity that makes his heart hurt. He reaches up with his good arm to thread his fingers through Steve’s hair and pull him closer, wanting to feel the length of his body against his. 

“Fuck- What was that for?” he asks as they break away, hand moving down to the small of Steve’s back to urge him to stay close. He’s not losing him again now. He’s lost enough.

Steve grins, Bucky able to see his expression clearly in the moonlight. “Well, I thought it was about time. I wouldn’t want to be accused of _pussyfooting around_ now, would I?”

Bucky groans at his words being used against him. “You’re a goddamn punk, Rogers.”

“Takes one to know one, you jerk.”

He snorts and leans up to kiss Steve, curtailing the conversation. Kissing, Bucky remembers, is really fucking good. He really loves nights at the lake but he has a new appreciation for them when he can be with Steve, the stars keeping their secrets.

xii.

Steve and Natasha are at the Avengers compound, both of them creeping around the place like silent ghosts. Natasha is there the most, taking the helm and coordinating with their allies. Steve flits between there and the VA, trying to find a purpose and failing miserably. He thought that it might bring him closer to Sam, might help with his trauma with Bucky, but it doesn’t. Still, it seems to help others and as there’s no Nazis or Thanos-shaped aliens to punch, it’s better than nothing. 

The building is too big and too empty when Steve turns up one night after a session, the sky clearer than ever with the lack of pollution. The smell of pizza easily leads him to Natasha and she gives him a look before reluctantly pushing the pizza box towards him.

“How was the VA?”

Steve shrugs, chewing his pizza and swallowing. “Hard. These people had been through enough before their families were dusted. It feels like I can’t do enough to help them… Sam was always better at giving advice than I was.”

“Sam was better at taking advice too,” she says with a small smile, reaching for her drink. “I don’t know whether he’d be proud of you for helping out at the VA or want to hit you for not dealing with your own problems first.”

“I don’t have problems-”

“Save it,” Natasha looks at him, her smile disappearing in an instant. “Really, save it. We _all_ have problems, we all had problems before this happened. Your problem starts with a capital B.”

Steve goes to refute it, to tell Nat that she’s wrong and that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about but he’s tired. He’s tired and hungry and it’s been years and Nat, of all people, isn’t going to judge him. Instead he takes a seat and puts the pizza slice back down in the box, hunching his shoulders like he used to when he was small.

“I miss him,” he says softly and Natasha is suddenly there, her arm half across his shoulders. “I miss him so much. I only just got him back and six months later, I lost him again.”

“I know, Steve.” He wonders, not for the first time, who Natasha lost. Before the Red Room, after and even now. He thought that she was with Clint when they’d first met, not knowing about his family until a few months later. “I know. You talk about how people have been through enough but you’ve been through enough for three or four people. You had PTSD back when we thawed you out. Super serum doesn’t mean you’re immune to feelings.”

“Nothing I can do about it though, is there?” he says with a bitter bark of laughter. “How do I get closure when he’s not even here? All I can think of is that every time we’ve gotten close to happiness, something has always happened to take it away. Perhaps it’s fate-”

“Not fate, just unfortunate,” Natasha interjects. “You were unlucky but he loved you. You know he loved you.”

Steve looks at her, noticing the slight fine lines around her eyes, the two-tone hair she’s currently sporting. She’s aged slightly in the intervening years since the snap and it’s another reminder that time moves on. He knows that he _hasn’t_ aged, barely looks more than a couple of years older than when he came out of the ice. Steve’s used to loss but he doesn’t like to think too hard about the fact that he’s going to outlive everybody but Thor and Loki. Maybe the Hulk if he ever comes back too. Half of his friends have already gone and he’ll get to lose the other half to time. It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem fair to spend the time he has with them complaining either and he ignores the voice in his head that sounds like Sam telling him that he shouldn’t repress things

“I know he did and I’m just being maudlin,” Steve says with a small smile. “Bucky always did call me a drama queen.”

“I knew I liked him but you don’t need to hold back. I can take you talking about how much you miss him if you can bring yourself to talk about it,” Natasha replies, giving him a small squeeze of a hug before stepping back and dropping in the chair next to him. “Now tell me about the VA session.”

“You know it’s confidential, right?”

Natasha gives him a look of disdain - it clearly says that she could find out the group members and their entire history within an hour - and so Steve sighs and starts to talk about how this one guy in his group is trying to date again. The nights pass slowly alone but they’re both aware that those hours while away a lot faster when there’s somebody to talk to.

xiii.

When it’s all over and done, Bucky finds himself in a brownstone in Brooklyn with Steve. The house is half-boarded up, weeds choking up the front path and it needs more than some spit and polish to get it more than habitable. Bucky discovered that Steve bought the house before Thanos was even on their radar but never moved in, knowing Bucky wasn’t ready to move back. When Bucky asked why Steve didn’t move in anyway, he went red around the ears and mumbled something about how it should be a joint project and that he’d only done the bare minimum to the place.

Bucky’s favourite part about it is the master bedroom. It was an old sunroom, Steve had explained, but it was the first room he had converted. It has exposed brick walls, the original hardwood floors and a spectacular glass half-roof. Tony had provided a type of glass that was used at the Tower, bulletproof and one way so that they can walk around as naked as they please. Bucky has two telescopes in there so that he can stargaze or simply lounge on his bed with Steve and look at the night skies. They tell each other stories, make up others, and it’s like they’re fourteen again and in that damn field in Jersey. 

Bucky hates Jersey on principle but he’s fond of that memory.

Talking of, it’s been hard to come back and find that he has _another_ gap in his memory. This one he can’t get back, not when he remembers saying “Steve?” and nothing else. Just a feeling of falling.

It took him and Steve a second to get back in step with each other, Bucky aware of Steve’s eyes on him constantly. He had to keep reminding himself that Steve wasn’t watching him for any other reason than because he missed him and that because for five years he wasn’t there by his side. Bucky hates that there’s nothing he can do to fix it, that for five years Steve woke up alone. Lonely.

“How’s the stripping going?” he asks as he walks into the bedroom on the second floor, a lazy grin tugging at his lips. Steve is stripped down to sweatpants and an undershirt, removing layers of wallpaper from the walls, the house revealing its secrets through the patterns as they come to light. Bucky doesn’t notice any of the checked wallpaper, his eyes glued to the way Steve’s pecs are practically straining against the white fabric

“Terrible,” Steve says with a grin, wiping his brow with his forearm and putting down the scraper. “I don’t suppose you’ve come to help?”

“Nope,” Bucky pops the ‘p’ to be annoying, something Steve does too when they’re teasing, and leans against one of the still wallpapered walls. “It’s nearly five and we’re due at Sam’s by eight.”

“Okay, so we gotta get going by six thirty with traffic,” Steve says, his face going distant and Bucky knows that he’s thinking of different routes they can take to avoid traffic, already mentally on his Harley. “I’ll stop at six then.”

Dense, Rogers. “Or you could stop now,” he says, deliberately looking Steve up and down and feeling a thrill of victory when Steve blushes. Steve’s a full body blusher, Irish heritage showing through and through, and Bucky loves when he can catch him off guard. “Maybe join me in the shower? Or even a bath?”

“That right, huh?” Steve moves closer, a determined look on his face. “Need some help washing your hair, sweetheart?” 

“Amongst other things,” Bucky’s pliant when Steve’s arms wrap around him, constantly amazed that the two of them fit together as well as they do. “Might help me relax around Sam.”

There’s an uneasy truce going on there. Steve’s passed on the shield and is - for now because Bucky isn’t that hopeful that it will actually last - retired for the most part. Bucky doesn’t _want_ to fight but he’s going to go out with Sam for a few missions until he can build his team around him, make sure that he doesn’t get his ass kicked. Bucky will be damned if Steve’s legacy gets ruined and he gets dragged back into being Cap when he’s finally, _finally_ being selfish.

Steve nods, brushes a quick kiss to his lips. “Sure, pal. I’ll shower off the worst of the dirt first and join you in the bath.”

“Thanks Stevie,” Bucky grins and kisses him again, longer and slower. He moans as Steve does that thing with his tongue and presses a thigh between Steve’s legs, unsurprised to feel his dick already hardening. Steve Rogers is fucking _easy_ sometimes and Bucky is very glad that the world doesn’t know that. “How did I luck out with a husband like you, huh?”

Steve snorts and steps around, hip checks him as he walks out of the room. “Must’ve gotten lucky.”

“Whatever, pal,” he calls back as he heads down the hall to their master suite and the tub big enough for two super soldiers. He thinks back to that day when they’d gone to City Hall to get the marriage license, both of them still sporting mild injuries from the battlefield. Neither of them wanted to spend a minute without each other, Tony’s death making it all too real that life was finite. A day later it was just the two of them and two random witnesses as they pledged their vows, neither of them needing any sort of fancy ceremony after over a century of knowing each other. They celebrated just the two of them that evening, Polaris and the rest of the stars a glorious backdrop to their picnic on the roof garden.

Sarah Rogers once said that they were written in the stars and Bucky is glad every day that she did.


End file.
